%0 Journal Article
%T The Bible Student¡¯s Sacrifice: Gender Fluidity and Consecrated Identity in Evangelical America, 1879-1916
%A Timothy Robert Noddings
%J Religion and Gender
%D 2012
%I Utrecht University Library Open Access Journals
%X American feminist scholars have often represented gender in nineteenth-century evangelical Protestantism as a binary conflict between oppositional ¡®male¡¯ and ¡®female¡¯ categories of identity and experience. Drawing on the theoretical work of Jeanne Boydston, this article argues that gender within evangelical religion is better understood as a ¡®system of distinctions¡¯ that could be articulated in a variety of ways, some of which violated the gendered division of masculine/feminine. The American Bible Student movement, as a fervent millennialist organization, demanded that its members sacrifice their individuality to become ¡®harvest workers¡¯ for Christ. This sacrifice temporarily provided Students with a degree of freedom to construct spiritual identities that combined ¡®masculine¡¯ and ¡®feminine¡¯ signifiers, de-stabilizing the binary meaning of gender. After 1897, a series of internal challenges and schisms re-solidified the gender line, associating stability with the limiting of women¡¯s power within both church and home.
%K Gender Theory
%K Evangelicalism
%K Consecration
%K United States
%U http://www.religionandgender.org/index.php/rg/article/view/1493